


Raise A Glass To Freedom

by Willowe



Series: automaton!AU [9]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Other, The Duel, automaton Hamilton, very vague suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-22 12:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6079809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willowe/pseuds/Willowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bullet is racing towards him. Alexander can see it, as if in slow motion, but he does not move to avoid it. There is no more time for running. There are no more days to be lived. </p><p>He aims his pistol towards the sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raise A Glass To Freedom

Alexander has been contemplating his own death since the moment he first awoke.

And how could he not? He had been blessed with a family of automatons, but that meant little when his mother started breaking down and finally stopped functioning altogether. Or when his cousin’s sentience was so unstable that it drove him to commit suicide. Or when James, his own brother, was murdered by humans who refused to see the value in anyone different from them.

Alexander learned early that being an automaton meant living a shortened life, whether from his body breaking down with no hope of repair or from being destroyed by any number of humans that would see fit to erase his kind from the earth.

And Alexander made his peace with that reality. He was alone on Nevis, with his family gone and no humans he could trust, and he knew that he had no hope of accomplishing anything in his life. Survival was the best he could hope for. Anything else was a useless dream.

But he left Nevis.

In the colonies he found friends, human friends that he could trust, and care about, and love. He found a cause to fight for, he saw a way to rise above the hand that Fate dealt him with his creation. And he saw a thousand new ways to die- killed in battle, or torn apart by a mob of his fellow soldiers, or arrested and executed for daring to love a human. It was inevitable, it was unavoidable, it was _meaningless_ , in the end, this obsession with his own demise. No matter the cause, he would soon cease to function and his friends would forget him and only his work would remain behind as a legacy.

But he didn’t die.

Alexander keeps living, and living, and _living_ , until he wants to scream with the frustration of it all. This was never a part of any of his plans, this continued existence that he finds himself in, with seemingly no end in sight. Forty-nine years he has been on this Earth and he sees now how foolish he was in his youth, because there is a second curse to being an automaton: If you do not die young, you are destined to live forever.

And forever is such a daunting prospect, when Alexander is yet again losing those closest to him. He thought, after the death of his family, that he never had to feel the sting of grief again, but he underestimated the ability of certain humans to claw their way into his affections.

Laurens, his first love, killed so many years ago now that sometimes Alexander cannot be sure if his memories of the man accurately capture his mannerisms, his words, his fond smile. Washington too is gone, a loss felt by the whole country, but that shared grief does not make it any easier for Alexander to bear. Eliza’s sister Peggy, taken by death far too young, one less confidant gone from Alexander’s life. And Philip, a grief that Alexander still does not have words for, the passage of the months doing nothing to ease that pain, and-

And Alexander is so tired of it all. He feels as if all of his energy has been sapped from his body, though he makes sure to maintain regular doses of his whale oil. It is enough for him to complete his work, to keep his appointments and attend to his family, but it is not enough to chase away the weight of the grief that he carries inside him.

He fears that nothing will be enough, at this point.

Perhaps that is why he finds himself standing here, at the dueling grounds in Weehawken, sighting down the length of his pistol towards none other than Vice President Aaron Burr. If he is doomed to live forever, until everyone who loves him has died, then perhaps the only solution is to find an end to his existence.

He lowers his gun as the call to start their paces is given. No, no it’s not fair of him to place that burden on Burr. This is a formality, nothing more. Burr will not shoot, and Alexander will not shoot, and… and he will go home to Eliza, and their children, and keep living, and living, and living-

But what if Burr shoots? What if the distance that has grown between them is too great to overcome? What if Burr is not thinking about the friendship they used to share, the way he used to subtly defend Alexander during the Revolution, the late nights they spent working on court cases together? If Burr shoots… where does that leave Alexander?

Can he fire back? Could he really bring himself to fire at someone he used to care about- that he still cares about, in a way? Can he shoot Burr and risk killing him- risk _losing_ him, after Alexander has already lost so many people?

But if he throws away his shot… If he stands by his intentions and does not fire back, no matter what Burr does… What will become of his legacy, of everything he has achieved on these shores? This country gave him hope when he had none, gave him a life when he never expected to have one, and he gave so much in return, so much more than he ever should have given.

They finish their paces and Alexander brings his gun up as he turns around. He sees the glint of Burr’s pistol, sees the flash of gunpowder as he fires, _he fired Burr fired at him-_

Alexander’s time is up. All of his life he’s been running- away from Nevis, away from the death that follows him, away from the problems he creates. Away from the news of Laurens’ passing and the ruin of his marriage and the terrible advice that he gave Philip that led to his son’s death. Away from the belief that he would die young, and from the reality that he wasn’t going to die, _he was never going to die-_

But he is going to die now, and where does that leave him?

Laurens, his mother, Washington- they’re all in Heaven, their eternal souls at peace. Will Alexander join them, in the end? Are automatons permitted to join the Kingdom of Heaven, when Alexander has no proof that he has a soul that will even transcend this life? If Heaven is not an option, will he at least see his son again? Or is Philip erased from all planes of existence, as Alexander is soon to be?

Will he be waiting there for Eliza, when she finally passes on as well?

 _Take your time_ , he thinks desperately. _Do not seek the answer to that question too soon, my love_.

The bullet is racing towards him. Alexander can see it, as if in slow motion, but he does not move to avoid it. There is no more time for running. There are no more days to be lived.

He aims his pistol towards the sky.

Forty-nine years of waiting for this moment, and Alexander is only now realizing that he has never truly contemplated what death would feel like. He assumed it would be quicker than a blink, one moment here and the next gone. Without the capacity for pain, his only struggle before that moment would surely be maintaining his mental faculties until the end.

But the bullet strikes his chest and buries itself deep in him, ricocheting off metal cogs and ribs as it tears a path of destruction through his body, and _Alexander feels it_.

He feels the hole it carves in him, the way it ignites the whale oil he consumed only two nights past, the feeling of an explosion bursting inside his stomach. He doesn’t know if it’s pain or heat or some other sensation altogether but he feels it, he feels this, he _feels_ -

Alexander does not realize that he has fallen to his knees until Pendleton is leaning over him, asking him if he is alright.

Alexander does not realize that he has started to laugh until he tries to respond. “This is a mortal wound,” he finally gasps out. And it is, he knows it to the depths of his being. But still he cannot stop laughing, with no other idea how to process the sensations racking his body, and completely overcome with the irony of the situation.

Forty-nine years of life, and it takes dying for Alexander to finally be able to feel anything at all. And he knows that this must be pain that he’s feeling, that with the destruction to his body it cannot be anything else. But Alexander has to put an emotion to this moment it would not be _hurt_ or _heartbreak_ or _regret_ , or anything that logically should go along with a sensation like _agony_.

No, if Alexander had to put a word to his emotions, it would be… free.

Free from a continual, cursed life. Free from the pain of losing others while he is forced to endure. Free from the endless wait for the inevitable, and knowing that it will never arrive.

Alexander imagined death so much it feels more like a memory. But if he had known that it would feel like this… well. He might not have waited forty-nine years to get here.

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be the last update in this series for a little while. I'm not abandoning it or ending it completely (I have way too many stories planned to give this up now!) but I am taking a small break for writing for this AU. I can't say when the next update will be except that there will be more stories... eventually. (I'd suggest subscribing to the series itself if you want to be notified when I update again.)
> 
> I want to sincerely thank everyone who has left comments and kudos or subscribed or bookmarked these stories. I have had such a wonderful time writing them, and honestly so much of that is because of the wonderful support and amazing feedback I have been getting from you guys. I've had more fun writing this AU than probably any other story that I've written before. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for sticking by this series. And I hope I'll see some of you down the road when I start updating again <3


End file.
